Washington, Charles, House

About this property

Happy Retreat (also known as Charles Washington House and Mordington) is a historic property in Charles Town, West Virginia, which was originally owned and developed by Charles Washington, the youngest brother of George Washington and the founder of Charles Town. Happy Retreat is a 2+1⁄2-story white-painted brick structure, with two-story flanking wings. The main facade has a prominent Doric pediment with no colonnade. An elliptical fanlight is centered in the pediment. Below, the main facade is three bays wide, with a one-story flat-roofed porch supported by Doric columns. The wings are attached by short hyphens, and have stepped masonry gables. The wings predate the central block. The main block features a transverse entry hall across the width of the block. Apart from the massing, the exterior has been extensively altered using revival-syle details and elements. Charles inherited land in the Shenandoah Valley upon the death of his older brother Lawrence in 1752. Charles was 14 years of age at the time, and living at Ferry Farm, near Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1780, Charles and his wife Mildred moved to his land from Fredericksburg. By that time, he had constructed two one-story structures on the property, separated by a breezeway or portico, and had named the property "Happy Retreat.". In October 1786, by act of the Virginia General Assembly, Charles Town was established on 80 acres (320,000 m2) of Charles's land adjacent to Happy Retreat, and Charles played an important role in planning the streets and construction activities of the new town. Although Happy Retreat is usually considered to have been established in 1780, there is reason to believe that Charles's land may have been farmed as early as 1768. This date appears on the cornerstone of the old kitchen at Happy Retreat, but has never been fully authenticated. The structure of, and materials used in, the kitchen and old brick smoke-house would indicate them to be pre-Revolutionary, and a clay-chinked limestone quarters which stood until recent years behind the kitchen and smoke-house possibly predated the kitchen. An octagonal wooden powder-house similar to the one at Mount Vernon exists today and is supposed to have held powder stores during the Revolution. Later it was used as a school house for Charles and Mildred's children. On his visits from his home in Fredericksburg to his property prior to 1780, Charles Washington is said to have lived in a small house, since disintegrated, on Evitts Run, a small stream that flows along the base of the hill at Happy Retreat. From this temporary dwelling he could well have directed the work of brick-making for the residence he had planned, as there are claybeds along the Run. Stone and timber cutting could also have been supervised nearby, as the surrounding meadows are laced with limestone outcroppings, and the property included ample woodland.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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